The Role of Social Media in Agribusiness

Social media has proven to be an extremely useful tool for many businesses today. By design, it is a tool for connecting people and several businesses have been doing just that; connecting with their customers, telling stories to evoke emotional responses, and providing valuable information.

Social media is also a powerful tool used to share information and create awareness. This is important because the information that is being shared on social media is used to make decisions on a daily basis.

People decide what they would wear, who to associate with, who to celebrate, what to eat and places to go just from the information they get on social media. Since people make the most basic and sometimes, the most important decisions based on the information they get from social media, it becomes a powerful channel for companies to market their products and services.

Some social media channels that agriculturists can sign up on include:

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Linkedin

Pinterest

Your agribusiness can benefit from social media in the following ways:

Virality: social media is like wildfire. Are you trying to make a positive change in agriculture? Did you discover something new? Social media is the fastest way to get your word out. Virality is built right into it because each time someone sees and likes your message, they share it with their fans and followers.

Engagement: News would normally be announced on the traditional form of media, that is, TV, radio or print but it is shocking that a lot of people don’t even get their news from those channels. There has been a great shift from TV/radio to social media where people share news and make it more interesting and engaging.

Also, sharing a news or any news on social media is free, and can be published for thousands to read at the click of a button. To get that same news out on TV/Radio, you will need to pass through a lot of bureaucracies and at the end of the day, someone might decide your news/ideas is not worth sharing.

Fund generation: about to start your farming business but don’t have the resources to? You can turn to social media for a way out. There are different ways social media can help launch your ideas.

Crowdfunding: this is the practice of raising money from a large number of people via the internet. Once you set up your crowdfunding page on the internet with a site like Kickstarter, you can spread the word via social media and send traffic to your page.

Partnership: Social media can connect you to people that are interested in farming but need a partner to get started. By partnering up, you will reach your goals faster.

Investment: you may not be able to get enough interest in your crowdfunding campaign especially if you are not very active on social media, however, you can attract investment from.

It will provide farmers access to better farm education: with social media, there will always be an opportunity to learn something new or find out new information.

Peer-to-peer communication: farmers now create WhatsApp group where they communicate with each other and share ideas. For example, farmers can share a post like ‘strategies to raise healthy poultry,’ by posting a link on WhatsApp group.

Marketing: social media is an amazing tool to reach new audiences that you can market your product and services to. You can share your marketing message on facebook groups, during twitter chats, Instagram posts, and different WhatsApp group. Social media is responsible for millions of sales for people’s businesses and you can start taking advantage of it for your own business.

Social media is an effective tool for agribusiness and farmers can take advantage of the many benefits that it has to offer.

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